A devoted Christian offers the fruits of faith and daily practice in a book intended to serve as a constant reminder of the...
A devotional by pastor and businessman Monge, author of another devotional and a spiritual autobiography.
Monge (Dancing with God, 2012, etc.) suffers from crippling clinical depression. As an expression of his faith, which has given him the strength to live, he has penned a devotional based on the Gospel of Mark, his favorite biblical book. Monge’s work follows a familiar pattern established in the 15th century by Thomas à Kempis, who wrote The Imitation of Christ, the most famous Christian book of inspirational commentary. Like Kempis’ book, the author’s devotional presents short chapters that summarize an abbreviated reading from the Bible followed by an opportunity for reflection and prayer. The author instructs his readers to consider each chapter after reading relevant sections of the Bible. Written in a simple, straightforward way, Monge’s book often details incidents from his own life to illuminate the chapters’ messages. The author has been studying Mark since 1965, and he brings a wealth of biblical scholarship to his enterprise. The other Gospels, the author contends, were all based on Mark, which served as a “primary source, plus there was another group of sayings called the Quelle, which in German means ‘source.’” Monge often offers historical or linguistic asides that contribute to his discussion. The author’s struggle with the demons of depression provides the emotional center for this devotional work, and he styles himself as a perseverant believer. He contemplated suicide, but his faith, despite the turmoil of his personal life, has brought him through. He writes that Jesus sat beside him “in Hell” and helped him through those dark times. Neither maudlin nor self-indulgent, the chapters reveal the author as a humble, devoted Christian practitioner who exhorts readers to realize their faith. “It is daily contact with God…,” Monge writes, “which causes the gradual transformation into a faith that is real.”
A devoted Christian offers the fruits of faith and daily practice in a book intended to serve as a constant reminder of the presence of Jesus in everyday life.Pub Date: May 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482321494
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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